In
a genuflection to the vignette style of Robert Altman, and a tribute to the
gloss of Alan Rudolph and Lawrence Kasdan,
Playing by
Heart has the following going
for it: Jon Stewart and Gillian Armstrong and her humongous dog, Ellen Burstyn
and Jay Mohr, Sean Connery and Gena Rowlands and their two dogs, Dennis Quaid
and Madeleine Stowe and their dogs, Nastassja Kinski, Anthony Edwards, and,
if those attractions aren’t enough, Ryan Phillippe and Angelina Jolie and
her one-eyed cat. The standout—the spectacular Jolie. When wearing a
scarf to cover her bronzy red hair, she looks like an irradiated Esther Williams,
and when she talks—she hardly ever stops talking, whether she’s negotiating
for custody of her cat or for a date with Phillippe, or explaining
Suddenly, Last Summer, or engaging in self-absorbed chatter
on the phone—it’s all capsulation, opinion and surmises, in a vocabulary
suggesting an education by Oprah. Her dazzling display of personality is
far friendlier than the dazzle she pushes in HBO’s
“Gia.” With metallic
blue-greenish hair, Phillippe isn’t in the least swamped by Jolie’s rushes.
With Playing by
Heart director-writer Willard
Carroll does some terrific story juggling by the use of foxy omissions and
edits; if you don’t already know the conclusion, it’ll probably come as one
of those warm and fuzzy surprises. (Though hints pop up here and there as
to how it will all collate.) There’s a background drag queen sendup
of Susan Hayward’s big number from Valley of the Dolls, complete
with Calder-like mobiles, and an even briefer bit of a dollish blimp
doing Neely. This is the best looking L.A. movie since Kasdan’s Grand
Canyon, and Vilmos Zsigmond shares the accolades with production
designer Missy Stewart and art/set decorators Charles Daboub, Cindy Carr,
Mark Poll and Patte Shibata Strong. Kudos to film editor Pietro Scalia. Music
by John Barry.